


I Found Love Where it Wasn’t Meant To Be

by frumious_bandersnatch



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Dean in Hell, M/M, Soulmates, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-22
Updated: 2020-12-22
Packaged: 2021-03-11 01:22:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,379
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28246863
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/frumious_bandersnatch/pseuds/frumious_bandersnatch
Summary: Some things were never meant to come to pass. History is malleable.
Relationships: Dean/Alastair
Comments: 10
Kudos: 16





	I Found Love Where it Wasn’t Meant To Be

**Author's Note:**

> A prompt given to me on tumblr. I had a lot of fun writing this, but it’s entirely unpolished and done in less than two hours so take everything with a grain of salt lol.

Alastair was a simple man. He loved his job, worked long hours, went home and ate and slept and was right back at it again the next day, every day. For eternity. 

He was an artist, a teacher, a general, at times, wouldn’t call his craft torture if it weren’t for the fact it fit every definition.

He was one of the first, one of the best and brightest, one of Lucifer’s favorites: but he didn’t let that make him cocky. He just did his job like the rest of them. 

His souls were always the best. They went on to lead and fight and be inspirations to the rest of demon kind. His most memorable were the seven deadly sins, most of Hell’s Knights. He carved a serpent out of Crowley, carved a lion out of Abbadon, always the best. Always perfect, but never too attached for anything more than fond mentoring. Than close enough for sex every hundred years or so, for reunions and chats in between work and play and duty. 

And then he was handed down a role from on high- or, down below, if one was to take these things literally. The righteous man. The first seal, the first drop of blood shed in Hell, was his. The honor was his. 

He shouldn’t have been surprised by this. But he was. Was honored, was beyond excited, because he already had John Winchester- who may very well could have been the first seal, but really, he wasn’t the right stock. Just went stony faced and straight during torture, took everything he was given. Didn’t beg. Screamed and screamed all day long but he didn’t beg or talk. 

That sort of soul could be great. But more often they were left shells, left to become hounds or any other kind of fell beast. Alastair was almost happy to see him escape through the gate, when it opened. 

When Dean was dragged down to Hell- Liith’s hound, eager little thing, maimed and tore and ripped and that was so pleasing to watch, made something stir in the pit of Alastair’s blackened and scarred soul as he watched Dean hang and scream and beg, confused and scared and alone. Reminded him of himself, all those thousands of years ago. 

When he pulled Dean down, long fingers taking care in prying hooks from joints and muscle, when he carried the unconscious, shuddering thing to his personal chambers and strapped it down to the long table in the center, he smiled. 

The room was small, cozy, walls either covered in storage (body parts preserved on shelves, potions and herbs and spells), in books; grimoires written by hand and bound in human skin, diaries, notes, sheafs of paper and drawings and diagrams all penned by himself. There was a wall covered by a blackboard which in turn bore diagrams and chicken scratch in enochian and Latin and English, in Mandarin and Arabic and Spanish and whatever suited the student or the description best. 

There was a fireplace, and a basket with brands and pokers of iron- sure, it would burn him too, but it really was the best metal for it.

A wall with flails and whips and dirks and everything for cutting and flogging and whipping flesh from bone. A rolling cart with his scalpel set and vials of acid and a serrated melon baller. 

Everything was always done by hand. Cleaned by hand, oiled and shined by hand and written by hand. Magic was cheating, until it wasn’t, until the torture called for it. 

And already, already he was planning and humming to himself and he’d never been this excited with a soul, this enamored, this so completely taken in preparing. He set out the scalpels, and he set out the straight razor, set out the cage of rats and the car battery. And he waited. Didn’t wake Dean right away, simply waited the hour and watched him breath, watching him heal and slowly stir.

Watched the flex of muscles under skin and couldn’t wait to bare them and cut just enough, just barely, and watch the strain and flutter and beauty of it all. 

Dean hated him, at first. Hated every touch, told Alastair to shove his razor right up his fucking ass. One day they took a field trip. 

Alastair dressed Dean up in slacks and a dress shirt and a vest, suspenders and sleeve garters. It was better than nothing.

And they watched how the rest of the pit operated. How souls weren’t allowed to heal in between sessions, unless necessitated by their condition, how they didn’t get to sleep. How the torture was brutal and how the hounds prowled between the racks for scraps. How often it was rape. How often it was that souls were whittled down into less than nothing and simply discarded because nothing more could be done and there was nothing left to salvage.

Dean didn’t hate Alastair quite so much after that. 

“So stubborn, Dean.” Alastair murmured, working his razor under the skin on Dean’s chest. “Still, now, I don’t want to nick the muscle. Want this perfect.”

And Dean stilled, even though his lip quivered and he let out short groans of pain. Being skinned wasn’t the worst thing that could happen, but Alastair always expected perfection. Expected art, expected what Dean _could_ give with the right effort but nothing more. 

And then Alastair was back to humming, to swaying lightly from side to side and occasionally bursting into soft whispered song when the swell of the music demanded it.

Sometimes Dean could close his eyes and just feel, then. Scream when it hurt, groan when it didn’t, sob when everything struck him and _dead in Hell and never getting out and Sammy’s up there alone and_ -

Alastair would do something unexpected. Pull him right out of it and, “Now, now, no slipping away from me yet, doll.”

Thirty years. Dean’s hand curled around the handle of the razor and he sobbed weakly. “Tell me who to-“

“Oh, Dean.” Alastair had murmured. “Not yet. Can’t torture when you’re feeling like this. No, no, come with me. Rest up, we’ll get you dressed and ready and it will be alright, hm?”

And they’d walked through the maze that was hell, through fire and brimstone and torches and wetness slicking the stone walls, and stepped into a beautiful modern apartment. Alastair made a pork roast. They slept in the same bed, Alastair curled around Dean, one arm around his middle.

Dean let himself be held. He let himself be murmured to, soft reassurances, _‘You know, Dean, you put too much, mm, pressure on yourself_ ’, and ‘ _Your daddy was wrong about you, boy._ ’

Dean’s mental health was never better than in the pit. 

He never knew that this wasn’t how it was supposed to happen. That they weren’t supposed to share a room and a bed, weren’t meant to share kisses over victims and fuck eachother tired and tender and rough and bloody. 

Dean was meant to be left a shell. Empty, a gaping hole in his soul big enough for an archangel. 

Instead he felt like he found his other half. Found the father figure he’d never had, found tenderness and love and joy and a purpose. He was good at his job, just like Alastair was. 

And at the end of ten years his screams were of anguish and loss and _don’t take me away nonnono- wanna stay, don’t take me away, please-_

He never talked about that. Because he wasn’t allowed to remember. Because when he was built back up from the ground he was built with a purpose, and having love wasn’t part of that at all. He was a weapon. He was a sword forged in fire with no room for Alastair or demons or soulmates, Cupid’s fell arrow be damned because Heaven needed its vessel. So all he remembered was the bad and the ugly and the torture and pain, the worst of it all and fabricated vitriol. He never would remember and that hurt Alastair all the more when, strapped to an iron cross, he saw his boy walk up to him with fear and hate in his eyes. 

Angels, sometimes, are worse than demons. 


End file.
